


Of All the Doorways in the World

by Las



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Between Seasons/Series, F/M, Season/Series 05-06 Hiatus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-14
Updated: 2012-11-14
Packaged: 2017-11-18 15:58:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/562807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Las/pseuds/Las
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set between S5 and S6.  “Perhaps there is a life here of not being afraid of your own heart beating.” -Bernadette Meyer</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of All the Doorways in the World

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from "Give" by Simon Armitage.

It was Saturday morning, a few months after Dean showed up on her doorstep, and they were sharing the bathroom mirror like a couple who had been married for years. It was a good time as any to voice the idle thought that had been poking at her for a while.

Lisa took the toothbrush out of her mouth and asked, “Didn’t you have a scar on your stomach?”

His stomach was currently free of scars. In fact, his whole body was scar-free, but she distinctly remembered kissing along a scar on his back all those years ago. She had traced her fingertips along a bite mark on his arm that he had told her was from a rottweiler, but now she knew it was probably a werewolf or a chupacabra or something like that.

Dean paused his shaving and got that expression on his face again, the one that Lisa learned meant ‘stop right there’. It reminded her that there was a darkness in him that she preferred to forget about, and she often wondered if it made her a bad person. Of course she wanted to be there for him, but she didn’t think she could be blamed for wanting to let sleeping dogs lie. 

He looked at her reflection, and looked, and looked, and just as Lisa cleared her throat and said, “Forget it,” Dean said, “Yeah, I did.”

Lisa gestured vaguely at his stomach. “Did you—? I mean…” She had no idea how that sentence would end when she started it.

Dean put his razor down, very gently and very deliberately, and after a few seconds’ hesitation, he told her what happened to his scars.

Thirty minutes later, he was sitting on the toilet lid and Lisa on the edge of the bathtub, and she knew more about the end of the world than she would ever expect before her morning coffee. For one thing, angels were nothing at all like what Sister Mary Frances had taught her in school, and when she told Dean this, he snorted.

“They surprise you,” he said.

Lisa studied him as he spun his story, taking note of where he paused and where he felt the need to elaborate. There were many of the former, less of the latter, and she wondered what she wasn’t being told. The night Lisa let Dean into her home, he had told her Sam was dead. That was it, that was all he’d say about his brother, and then he let her hold him and she didn’t pry. Even now, regaling her with tales of heaven and hell and angels and demons, Sam seemed to exist only as an implication in Dean’s quavery ‘we’.

“I don't think the bible ever mentions an angel named Castiel,” Lisa said instead.

“I think he was basically Stunt Angel #4,” Dean mused, “but then he grew a pair.” He touched his shoulder and said, “I used to have his handprint right here, and he cleared that up too. Kind of a shame, though. Chicks dug it.”

Lisa raised an eyebrow. “Did they?”

“Man, you know how much mileage I got out of that thing? I told this one girl I got it saving a kid from a burning building and she gave me her number.”

Lisa laughed. “Pure class as always.”

And then, miracle of miracles, Dean laughed too. It was the first time she had seen him laugh - not the weird grins at her friends or the fragile smiles at kindnesses that he seemed surprised to receive. A real laugh. Something loosened in him, and it made something loosen in her too. Made something flutter in her heart, realizing,  _I could do it. I could do this. I could fall in love._

“That’s me,” Dean said. “Real classy.”

“So do I get to meet this Castiel?” 

Dean’s laughter tripped, then stumbled to a stop.

Lisa’s smile faltered.

“Probably not,” he said, then cleared his throat. “I… uh, he’s busy, I dunno. No.”

And just like that, the silence was back. Dean looked down as if further instructions were stencilled on her bath mat, and Lisa stared at him wondering whether to change the subject or to let the silence play itself out. She couldn’t tell with him sometimes. Confused people are confusing, and Dean Winchester was the very picture of a man who no longer knew what to do.

Lisa said, “Hey-“

The doorknob jiggled, then they heard a knock and Ben’s sleepy grumble from the hall. “I need to pee.”

“Just a second,” Lisa yelled, at the same time Dean said, “Hold your horses.” 

“Oh god, please tell me you guys aren’t - ugh.” Ben banged once on the door. “I brush my teeth in there!”

Teenagers make the best worst assumptions. Startled, Dean caught Lisa’s gaze, waiting for her reaction with a combination of amusement and wide-eyed horror. Lisa looked back at him likewise. Then she yelled, “Ohhhh Deeeeaaaannn!”

“Mommmm!  _God_.”

Dean pressed his fist against his mouth as Ben yelled, “Real mature, guys!” and stomped back down the hall. A few seconds later, his bedroom door slammed.

Dean held up his hand and said, “Up top.”

Lisa high-fived him, then he pulled her close and kissed her, smiling against her mouth. She slipped her arms around his waist and kissed him back.


End file.
